


The First Mission: Already A Disaster

by angel_deux



Series: Won't You Let Us Wander [2]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst, Cassian has control issues, Comedy, F/M, Fix-It, Jyn is happy to have a family but kinda snarky about it, Minor Chirrut Îmwe/Baze Malbus, Slow Burn, baze is jealous and chirrut thinks it's funny, bodhi is nervous and everyone wants to protect him, i just love this team, the best combo, the continued misadventures of Rogue One
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-11
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-09-16 18:32:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9284714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_deux/pseuds/angel_deux
Summary: For their first adventure post-Scarif, Cassian landed them something nice and simple. Predictably, it doesn't stay that way. Meanwhile, Jyn does what she can to get her hands on a new version of an old friend.





	1. You May Have Control Issues

 Jyn thought it was probable that Cassian was exaggerating for her sake when he laid out their future plans. This picture perfect idea of the five of them traveling together, working missions together, fighting for the Rebellion together. It was a nice thought. But Jyn had heard enough of pretty words over the years to distrust that they would ever be anything _but_ pretty words. It was the fact that he cared enough to say them that had made the difference.

But now, standing here in this modified Corellian light freighter that they’ve been officially assigned, she realizes that Cassian wanted this as badly as she does. The Rebellion is short on ships – that’s one of the only things Jyn knows for _sure_ about the Rebellion, because leadership never stops complaining about it – but he somehow secured this for them. He committed to them all in a way that Jyn is sure she has never been committed to. She thinks it’s true of all of them that they’ve all had a shortage of friends in their lives, and now that they’re together, they’re reluctant to part again.

“We’re ready, Cassian,” Bodhi calls up, toward the cockpit at the front of the ship, his enthusiasm infectious as he passes through the living quarters on his way from the engineering hatch. He gives Jyn a cheeky wave as he darts by, spotting her poking her head out of her cabin. The living spaces are small – cozy, Jyn would say – and if she was any less content, she would compare her cabin to her prison cell on Wobani. But there’s something about this closed-in little box that already feels like home.

Jyn shoves her small pile of extra clothing into one of the drawers under her bed. She can almost _feel_ Saw’s annoyance (he was allowed to be as messy as he wanted, of course, but she was held to higher standards as a child. He never tolerated a messy room, even in the middle of a wartime bunker), but she’s eager to get out into the ship. Being away from Yavin, even in these small quarters, will be a relief. Jyn still hasn’t managed to find her footing within the Rebellion. Always there is a feeling that she’s intruding, that she isn’t welcome, that she isn’t wanted.

She never feels that way when she’s with her team. To be alone with them again, to do things _their_ way, it feels like freedom.

She leaves the living quarters and moves into the main hold, which is currently inhabited by her two warrior friends. Chirrut is lounging on a patched up couch that Bodhi managed to scavenge from a decommissioned cruiser, while Baze stands in front of him, arms folded across his chest.

“Was she as beautiful as the smuggler said?” Chirrut is asking. Baze scoffs.

“She was beautiful. Not beautiful enough for all the fuss.”

“You’re the wrong man to ask, though.”

“The princess?” Jyn asks, grinning at the annoyance on Chirrut’s face.

“Baze doesn’t give compliments freely. He thinks it says more about him than it does. Maybe you will tell me: is she as beautiful as they say?”

“I think so,” Jyn replies. Her own interactions with Leia have been brief, but there was an undeniable peace that radiated off the younger woman when she came to shake the hands of everyone who survived Scarif. Jyn had the benefit of not knowing very much about galactic politics _or_ the Rebellion, but from watching Bodhi and Cassian’s starstruck reactions, she knew it was an honor. And it’s easy to admire Leia. Her whole planet was destroyed, but you wouldn’t know it for the poise she possesses. Jyn can’t sleep through the night without waking up gasping, sweating, Scarif playing out behind her eyelids. She wishes she could be more like Leia.

“She has a strength I have not felt in another person for such a long time,” Chirrut says, and his sigh is apparently longing enough that it makes Baze bristle. “Not like that, you fool. The Force. I’m saying it surrounds her.”

“The Force,” Baze says, rolling his eyes towards Jyn. “How convenient.”

“Where are we headed, little star?” Chirrut asks, waving Baze’s skepticism away. Jyn stifles the rising reflexive smile.

“The Balit System,” she replies. “Cassian said there’s an Imperial presence on the moon of Kopha. A small mining world, largely insular. They’ve been Imperial controlled for a while now, but Cassian’s contact says they’ve never seen activity like this. We’re supposed to observe them and report back their numbers and their purpose.”

“So _I’ll_ have a lot to do, then,” Chirrut says dryly, causing Baze to snort.

“I prefer that to you getting in the way. Easier to watch your back.”

“I wouldn’t count on that,” Jyn points out, which makes Chirrut smile triumphantly at his partner.

“She already knows me so well.”

“Yes. That’s not a good thing,” Baze fires back.

* * *

Jyn enters the cockpit, taking ownership of the small seat behind Cassian as he and Bodhi pull away from Yavin’s atmosphere, leaving the limping Rebel fleet behind.

“Kopha is important,” Cassian says, in response to some earlier conversation that Jyn missed. Bodhi’s scoff tells Jyn how the conversation was probably going.

“Kopha? Kopha is barely a moon. It’s a space rock. Kopha was the place you were assigned to if you screwed up. If anyone had cared to ask me, I could have told them that it’s useless, and we could be on our way to scout a new base instead.”

“Why would they send a team of five to scout for a new location?” Cassian asks.

“A team of five? Why not? You’d send more?”

“ _More_? Of course not! One or two, at the most. Five!”

“Five’s a perfectly acceptable number for a scouting mission, what are you on about?”

“For the Empire,” Jyn points out with a quiet smile, leaning over the back of Bodhi’s chair, briefly startling the nervous pilot. “Easy to source a scouting mission of five when you have those kinds of numbers.”

“Oh. Yeah. Right,” Bodhi murmurs, looking between Jyn and Cassian with a bashful smile. “Guess that’s true.”

“Besides,” Jyn continues, her tone slightly needling, trying to cheer Bodhi up, her own enthusiasm feeling strange and ill-contained in her chest. “I heard they’re sending Skywalker to check out Hoth. If they’re sending their biggest hero _there_ , imagine where they’d be sending us.”

“Why, what’s on Hoth?”

“Literally nothing,” Cassian mutters. 

“And it’s cold,” Jyn agrees. Cassian shoots her a small smile, and his next words have an edge of teasing to them.

“Kopha’s not looking too bad now, is it?”

“Could be worse,” Jyn says.

“At least there are people.”

Faced with Jyn and Cassian both in playful agreement against him, Bodhi seems at least partially mollified. Still, he holds on to his annoyance with, “not that I’m going to be allowed to talk to any of them, probably.”

Jyn looks expectantly at Cassian in response to Bodhi’s sulking words. Cassian shakes his head.

“Absolutely not.”

“Will _I_ be allowed to talk to them?” Jyn asks.

“No. Well…yes. If something goes horribly wrong and I’m killed.”

Jyn rolls her eyes toward Bodhi, whose face scrunches up into disbelief.

“You may have control issues,” he says. Jyn only barely stifles her laugh in time, but Cassian sends her a sharp look anyway.

“I didn’t say it,” she says.

“You didn’t have to,” Cassian replies, but she knows she isn’t imagining the hint of a smile on his face, either.

And she knows exactly what he’s feeling, because she feels it too.

It’s too good to be true, to be allowed to smile and laugh when they both grew up thinking that they would never have the luxury of friendships, when they thought that they would never be able to look at another person and see camaraderie and fondness reflected back at them.

And to be gifted with so _much_ after what they thought would be their last stand, it’s almost overwhelming. Jyn knows that part of why Cassian is so controlling is because he’s afraid to lose it all again. Which is the exact thing that keeps her from sleeping most nights.

* * *

Once they’re clear of Yavin 4 and in hyperspace, Cassian heads towards the back to check up on things, and Jyn takes his seat. She’s careful not to jostle anything: none of the controls mean anything to her, and Bodhi is nervous enough as it is. She has flown smaller starships before (poorly, always) but this ship is larger than anything she’s ever touched, so she’s careful to keep her hands away from any buttons or levers.

“Bodhi,” she says innocently, interrupting the distracted pilot’s train of thought as he scans the readouts on one of his screens. “Kopha. What kind of Imperial presence is there?”

“Not much of one, last I was there. A small garrison, mostly troops in and out. Not a huge permanent presence, not like Jedha, if that’s what you’re wondering. Most of Kopha’s operation is run by security forces. The people don’t give them much trouble. There’s no one like Saw Gerrera on Kopha. Couple people try to fight back, a few resistance demonstrations, but mostly it’s just people who would rather stay out of the Empire’s way.”

_Like me, once_ , Jyn reflected, though she had still found herself in an Imperial Labor Camp anyway. Fat lot of good staying out of the way had done her. Strange to look back on that battle-hardened girl and call her naïve, but the Jyn of today, surrounded by friends, with a guaranteed place to sleep and meals in her belly, can hardly stand the thought of the girl who said _I don’t have the luxury of political opinions_.

“Well, that’s foolish of them. But there _is_ a garrison, right? With troops, ships, the whole thing?”

Clearly not liking the intensity of this line of questioning, Bodhi’s answering “yes” is drawn out into a question.

“Security droids, is what I’m getting at,” Jyn prods, voice lowering. Bodhi’s eyes widen.

“Oh no, Jyn, you can’t do…have you ever seen… those things are…”

“Shh! Shh, hey, Bodhi! Relax. I’m just asking!”

“You don’t ‘just’ ask!”

“Oh, come now. You’ve only known me a few weeks!”

“Which is enough for me to know you don’t just ask. You’re planning to take one of those things for Cassian, aren’t you? There are easier Life Day gifts to give him.”

“Everything is almost perfect but for K2 being gone,” Jyn hisses, still whispering even though Bodhi’s urgent whine is a much louder volume. If Cassian’s listening, the surprise is already blown open. “Bodhi, I’m not going to do anything reckless.” An incredulous look at that, and Jyn sighs. “I’m not going to do anything _too_ reckless.”

“You know how many of those people back there wanted to blast you and I into space once Galen was…out of the picture?” Bodhi asks, his attempt at ‘tact’ not really landing, but appreciated for the effort anyway. “Going rogue - again! - on our first mission back and trying to capture a dangerous Imperial security droid just so Cassian can have his best friend back is not the kind of thing that will make them want to keep us around!”

“If it works, Cassian'll probably be grateful enough to stop them from kicking us out.”

“That’s not as comforting as I think you think it is.”

“But you’ll help make me a copy of that backup program Cassian has, right?”

“If you don’t give me another choice!” Bodhi huffs. Jyn leans across the space between them to kiss him on the cheek.

“Thank you, Bodhi. You're the best.”

“This is already a disaster.”


	2. What Do You Think He Would Do?

The only word Jyn can think, repeatedly, as she and Cassian weave through the city of Dawara is _oppressive_. It’s almost worse than Wobani. The stifling lack of freedom is as bad as the chains around her wrists. At least she knew that those chains would be removed eventually. This corner of Kopha has the feeling of a place that never smiles, a place that looks studiously at the ground, shuffling its feet, letting events pass it by because it’s easier to comply than it is to resist. The loudspeakers blare with advertisements, with news about different sectors and names of politicians who must mean something to the people who live here, but nothing about the Empire, nothing about the destruction of the Death Star, nothing about anything that _matters_. The war might as well not be happening at all.

In her other life as Saw’s adopted daughter, Jyn witnessed a lot of places like this. Saw seemed almost to have a sense for it, for the oppression and misery of a place without hope. He would bring hope with him. Death and chaos too, of course, but hope was his main effect. He would inspire people who thought they had nothing to fight for.

Not for the first time, Jyn wishes she had appreciated Saw more when he was still a part of her life. Not for the first time, she wishes that he had not abandoned her. It mixes unpleasantly with the wish that she had never met him at all.

* * *

Being in Dawara for an hour makes her want to apologize to Cassian – again – for having been oblivious to the Empire’s insidiousness before.

The first apology was trying to inspire the Rebellion to fight. The second was everything that happened on Scarif. The third was staying when she wanted to run. One of these days, she’s going to have to get around to saying the words themselves.

Just like on Jedha, Cassian is tense. He goes into this sort of herding mode, his hand always guiding her at the small of her back or on the underside of her arm, gently nudging her along beside him, eyes darting everywhere. He’s less hurried than he was on Jedha, less frantic, more calculated and subtle. He’s less obvious to everyone but her, because no one but her is watching him so closely.

They pass by a gaggle of Stormtroopers and Cassian shows no signs of having even noticed them. He’s good at this, and she’s glad she’s with him. If she were alone, the pacified lack of interest of the people around them would eat at her.

_It’s not a problem if you don’t look up_ , Jyn hears herself saying. She keeps her eyes on her feet as the troopers pass, but it burns something within her.

It’s easy for these people, she realizes. She hates, now, that she said what she said to Saw. She hates that it was one of the last things he heard from her. She hates thinking that he could have been ashamed of her even a bit, in the end. But she wasn’t wrong. That’s the worst part of it. You can live quite comfortably under a rule like the Empire’s, even if you know it’s bad. You can tell your children to keep their heads down, to follow the rules, to do what the Empire says. You can convince yourself that the troublemakers are to blame. As long as you aren’t one of them, you have nothing to worry about. That’s almost worse than the people who join the Empire. At least those people have the zealotry of their bad opinions. These people, that past version of Jyn herself, they’re just cowards.

“This way,” Cassian says, tugging her arm, and she follows him. She keeps her eyes on the people, on the troopers, on the Imperial flags hanging from every building.

_This is what it looks like_ , she reminds herself, forcing herself to feel it. _This is what it_ feels _like_.

It feels wrong. All of this feels wrong.

“How much further?” she asks Cassian, trying to ask the question casually, like they’re just two people walking from one place to another, nothing hurried or rushed. Their clothing doesn’t stick out terribly, though they might be a little less put together than most of the people in this wealthy district.

“I have a contact at the tailor up here,” Cassian says, bending his face close to say the words. “She used to live on Coruscant. Moved here not too long ago. She’ll have a good idea of where we should start.”

* * *

Cassian’s contact is a Twi’lek woman named Pouli who hates Kopha as much as they do, and who lets them into the back room of her shop eagerly, happy to be of use to the Rebellion. Jyn is suspicious about how easy it is, but Cassian seems to trust this woman, so she finds herself gradually relaxing as they accept food and beverages and Pouli starts to fill Cassian in on the various troop movements and important political concerns of the city.

Jyn listens at least halfway, though she’s admittedly distracted by a thousand things. Pouli’s shop is filled with colorful clothing that reminds Jyn of her childhood.  She can’t stop looking at this one top. It’s pale yellow, with a gold stripe around the sides and back of the collar. She thinks her mother might have owned something like it once. It sparks a memory she didn’t know she had. She gazes at it until her eyes start to water, and then she pretends to laugh at whatever joke Pouli just told.

* * *

“You seem distracted,” Cassian says to her when they’re back on the street.

“I’m not,” she says, the lie reflexive, though she’s not even sure why she does it. “This moon makes me want to be anywhere else. That’s all.”

Cassian murmurs an agreement and tugs her gently down a sidestreet. _Head for the outskirts_ , Pouli had said. _Past the Rodian quarter. You’ll know it when you see it. Look for the people crossing the street to avoid walking in front of it. A big, stone building. Old. I think they’re housing troops there._

“We have a direction,” Cassian reminds her, a comforting murmur. He doesn’t like this place any more than she does. “We’ll check out the building she indicated and then return to the ship. Sun’s going down soon, and I’m not sure what we’re dealing with. I don’t want to be out on the streets after dark until we know.” Jyn gives an affirmative.

They head for the outskirts of the city, towards where they left the ship. Like most of the Empire’s moons, the actual presence isn’t huge, and is focused mostly on the heavily populated areas, which means the outskirts have a more rebellious vibe to them. Dangerous, most people would say, but Jyn feels more relaxed here, and she knows Cassian does too, though he doesn’t seem any less alert and ready for danger. But Jyn knows of Cassian already that he would be this tense, this nervous, in an empty room, because she’s the same way. It’s what comes of growing up without certainty. You learn to do without assumptions. You learn to make every action as if no one will be there to have your back if you fall.

Jyn isn’t sure who notices their tail first, but when she glances at Cassian to warn him, she sees his eyes pulling back from the shadowy figure at the same moment, and he nods.

Attempting a casual air, Jyn pretends to peer into a shop, checking the reflection for their tail. He’s not being very subtle. Dressed in a long, hooded robe. Not a Stormtrooper. Probably not even Imperial. The way he’s walking is too flowing, too graceful, too ready to transition directly into battle. No, this is a bounty hunter.

“Professional,” she says quietly to Cassian. If anyone around them is listening, it could be a comment on the datapads lined up in the window.

“Expensive?” Cassian asks. Trusting her knowledge of the criminal underworld, apparently. Jyn lifts one shoulder into a half shrug.

“Just an instinct,” she tells him. “Not looking to buy yet.”

_Not hired. He just thinks we look like we might be up to something._

Cassian follows her meaning. She can tell, because he takes her hand, pointing to another datapad.

“What about that one?” he asks softly. Casually. He’s playing a part now. She pretends to consider the datapad. Really, she watches closely. Their tail has stopped a few shops back and is talking into his comms.

“Not working,” she says, and Cassian nods.

“Wait for it,” he says. The confidence in his tone is reassuring, even though she’s not sure she agrees with it. They watch the tail together in the reflection of the window. Cassian’s hand releases hers, only to drift up to her shoulder, gripping tight. Then, the bounty hunter turns to look behind him, to keep an eye on what’s going on around him, and Cassian whispers, “now!”

He pushes her forward, into the shop, and she keeps moving. She leads the way to the back, through the back room, and into the alley, ignoring the irritated protests of the shopkeeper.

Once they get outside, Cassian’s the one who takes over. He’s memorized the city’s layout as much as time permitted, Jyn is sure. Either that or he’s just really good at pretending he knows where he’s going. He takes them down a few more alleys, taking turns seemingly at random, until finally emptying them again into a crowded street in a much less nice part of the city. But he doesn’t slow down, even though it gets them some dirty looks; they pick their way across the road and into another alley.

There, he reaches back without looking and grabs her by the front of the jacket, tugging her into a doorway and pushing her up against the side of it, peering out into the alley to see if their tail has managed to keep up. After a moment, he ducks his head back in, the two of them pressed into the shadows.

“He’s out there,” he says. “But he didn’t see us come this way.”

“Professional,” she reminds him. “What’s the plan?”

“The plan is that we split up.”

“What’s the real plan?”

“This isn’t the time to start questioning my orders.”

“You’ve been my official captain for less than a day. Technically, I have no precedent for following your orders.”

“This is serious!” he hisses.

She barks back, “do I seem like I’m joking? You’re not sending me back to the ship.”

“How did you know I was…ugh, yes, you’re going back to the ship. You need to warn them that someone knows we’re here.”

“He doesn’t know anything. He’s just looking for an easy mark, and we look it.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do!”

Cassian shushes her, peeking out again.

“I don’t see him.”

“And he doesn’t see us. Let’s keep going!”

But Cassian has good instincts. She knows that’s true, even as she knows she doesn’t want to separate from him. She knows that Cassian has spent much of his life, much of his time in the Rebellion, working alone. That doesn’t mean she thinks it’s a good idea for him to keep doing it. Especially not in this city, in this place that makes her so uncomfortable. She has good instincts too, and they’re screaming at her that they need to get off this rock while they still can. Their bounty hunter tail won’t give up so easily, and he’s bound to have friends.

“Okay,” he says quietly, peering out at the street. “I see him. You head down this alley here. He’ll follow me, and I’ll lose him when I can. Get back to the ship, tell the others what’s happened. Wait for an hour.”

“And if you’re not back in an hour? Then, what, we’re just supposed to leave you here?” Jyn asks, which sounds every bit like the refusal it’s meant to be.

“If I haven’t called you on the comm? Yes,” Cassian replies, as if it’s obvious and she’s wasting time by asking stupid questions. She would bristle at that, but he’s nervy and tense in front of her, and she knows he isn’t going to give her much more time.

“Cassian, we can’t just...”

He looks at her in that sharp way he has, and her protests die in her throat, because he looks _sorry._

“If it takes me that long, it means I’ve been captured. And that means I’ve had to take the lullaby to keep the Rebellion’s secrets safe. You know that’s how it works. There would be no point in waiting longer.”

The lullaby. The suicide pill. Cassian mentioned it only once, when she saw him taking a small capsule from a packet in his clothing drawer back on Yavin 4, tucking it into his jacket. Jyn hadn’t asked, at the time, for more details. She’d been too horrified at the concept, too horrified because she understood why, understood the need for something like that, but still balked at the idea of someone having to carry it with them.

Cassian especially, though that was something she only admitted deep inside herself.

It was hypothetical at the time. _Just don’t let him get caught_ , she’d told herself. But now it’s real.

There are a thousand words Jyn wants to say, but Cassian never gives her the chance. He’s gone into the crowd, breaking into a run, leaving Jyn huddled in the doorway, wishing she’d managed to find any words at all.

* * *

She makes it back to their ship without issue. Cassian wasn’t the only one who spent a childhood blending in and sneaking out. She’s sure she wasn’t followed. Bodhi is waiting by the cargo doors to let her in, big eyes wide, taking in the empty space around her where Cassian should be.

“He told me to wait an hour for him to get in touch. If we don’t hear from him, he said we should leave him,” Jyn explains when she and Bodhi get to the main hold, where Chirrut and Baze are waiting. “But we’re not doing that.”

“You’re expecting an argument?” Chirrut wonders.

“The man said an hour. We should wait an hour,” Baze puts in. Chirrut laughs, flashing a fond smile back at his irritated partner.

“Sometimes you still manage to surprise me, Baze Malbus,” he says.

“I’m only saying. He’s a spy. He knows the stakes.”

Jyn ignores Baze, which probably doesn’t shock him. She pushes through the small crew hallway, opening the door to Cassian’s cabin. She’s moving on instinct, nerves raw and chafing, and she doesn’t consider how much a violation of what little privacy there is on the ship this is. She pulls open the small drawer under his clothing compartment, knowing that this is where they’ll be, and she’s right. She takes one of the pills in her hand. It’s small. Smaller than she would have thought, for something that can end a man’s life. She tucks it into her jacket the way she’s seen Cassian do before.

“You’re going after him,” Bodhi says from the doorway. It startles her, the suddenness of it, but she can’t say she’s surprised he followed her. Bodhi can’t stand it when anyone’s upset. She straightens her jacket to avoid meeting his eye, hoping he doesn’t realize what she took.

“Someone has to watch his back,” she finally says.

“He sent you back here for a reason.”

“Because he’s protective and thinks he has to do everything himself.”

“Or because he knows it’s too dangerous for two.”

“Bodhi,” Jyn sighs, finally looking at him. The pilot looks terrified. She reaches out a hand and puts it on his arm. “Bodhi, if it was one of us out there, and Cassian in here, what do you think he would do?”

“Leave?” Bodhi guesses, but he sounds like he knows he’s lying – and he’s still not great at it. Jyn flashes a smile at him.

“He’d say ‘we have to go’ about a million times, but do you really think he could do it?”

“No,” Bodhi admits.

“Do you think _you_ could?”

Even less doubt this time: “no.”

“Neither could I. I’m going out there.”

“Do you at least know where he was going?” Bodhi asks.

“We got the location of a second area of concentration for the Empire. He was going to check it out. He’ll be around there. If he comes back while I’m gone, just give me a signal on my comlink, all right?”

“I hope you’re right about this.”

“I’ll be fine,” Jyn says. Bodhi looks away, and she understands why: his eyes betray that he doesn’t believe her. She squeezes his arm firmly, wishing she had more of her father in her. Galen would have the right words for this moment. Jyn can’t always find them. Sometimes they come to her easily, allowing her to say the exact right thing. Sometimes she may as well be trying to compose a sonnet in Bocce.

“How long should we wait?” Bodhi asks.

“As long as you think you can,” Jyn replies.


	3. No One To Watch Your Back

Jyn moves more quickly without Cassian by her side, but she hates it. She’s already used to the partnership. Already used to the easy back-and-forth of ideas, even if Cassian doesn’t listen to very many of hers. Alone, she feels vulnerable. That’s an annoying weakness to have: she should be used to being alone.

Saw would have told her that it was dangerous to depend on any one person, because that person will die, or will leave you. _The only thing you can depend on is that people aren’t dependable_ , he would say, and he would move Jyn’s bunk so that whichever of his people she was laughing too much with was an entire compound away.

Saw wouldn’t have thought too highly of her disobeying orders to run off after a fellow soldier, either, but what could you do? She never had much use for Saw’s rules anyway.

She keeps her scarf pulled up around her mouth, keeps her hood up, minimizes her exposure to the prying eyes that everywhere seem to be looking for her. She affects the downtrodden gait of the people around her, and she does her best to move with the crowd, never making any movements that would seem out of place. Always she keeps moving south, toward where Pouli said the building repels the people who go out of their way to walk around it.

It’s easy enough to spot, once she gets close. Pouli was right: everyone stays away. It’s an old stone building – it looks like it was maybe once a fort of some kind, back when the city was new, and now looks out of place even in this older quarter, the newer buildings springing up around it.

It’s as if a forcefield has opened around the Imperial compound, and though the Stormtroopers guarding its gates don’t wear armor, in some misguided attempt to blend in, it’s obvious to Jyn what they are. They stand with the same rigidity, hold their blasters in the same way. Jyn leans back against a wall down the street to watch, pretending to rest. A cursory look around doesn’t reveal Cassian to her, but it doesn’t reveal the bounty hunter, either. The soldiers seem relaxed, unhurried. They don’t look like they suspect anything. She arches her neck to look behind her, back down the road. It’s packed with people. Any one of them could be Cassian. Any one of them could be an Imperial soldier. She crouches down and takes off her pack, pretending to look through it for something.

A few minutes pass like this. She’s not overly worried, because the activity on the street is calm and quiet. As passive and eerily complacent as these people are, Jyn knows that a prisoner being brought here or a man being killed would cause, at the very least, a slight stir. And Jyn is paying attention, is listening for the changing charge of the atmosphere that would herald anything exciting.

She starts to relax. Starts to feel like she may have overreacted, running off after Cassian like this. She’ll get a comlink call any second now, and Cassian will be furiously barking at her, demanding her to get back to the ship. She’ll go back, part sheepish, part defiant, neither really winning out unless Cassian decides to confront her, at which point there’ll be a massive row and they’ll be angry with each other for a few hours.

Saw would also have something to say about her optimism, probably.

And he would have been right, because the shift she was dreading happens. Whispers, first. A few people walking faster than normal, spreading the whispers with them as they go. Gestures from stall owners to shopkeepers. People grabbing their things from tables and ducking into buildings. The increased pace of people trying to pretend they don’t notice the soldiers, transforming their fleeing into an awkward, hopping shuffle, looking over their shoulders while trying to pretend they aren’t. Half the people moving away probably don’t even realize why they’re doing it; it’s second nature, Jyn remembers well, to follow the crowd in moments like this. You don’t need to know what’s going on to know it isn’t good news.

And then the seismic shift, and Jyn is ready.

At the discreet building in front of her, some of the soldiers peel away from their posts, their comlinks squawking audibly even from here. They’re moving off, down a side street, away from Jyn’s position.

The people around her are torn between fascination and fear. The movement is away from them, so they seem unable to decide if they want to commit to running, like they’re afraid to admit that they know something is wrong. Jyn sticks close to the buildings, feeling eyes on her as she moves _towards_ the source of commotion. It marks her as an outlier. It paints a big, red target on her back.

Saw, somewhere, is apoplectic.

_Sorry, pop_ , she thinks, her girlish nickname for her adopted father coming unbidden to her, so many years after having last used it. And she hitches her shoulders higher and keeps going.

As she reaches the intersection, the Imperial building perched on the opposite corner like a malevolent bird of prey, the entryway opens, and she freezes at the edge of the road.

Stormtroopers, these ones dressed for the part, swarm out, blasters ready, falling into formation, and the people around Jyn decide that they’ve been careful enough. Subtle sneaking turns to outright panic, pushing and shoving to be, at least, _not_ the closest person to the thirty-odd Stormtroopers now doing their strange shuffling run, all clanking plastic, down the hilly road that intersects with the main one. Their comlinks, she can barely hear over the sound of their footsteps and armor, and she knows she needs to get closer.

She’s the only madwoman trying to get closer.

Being small is rarely an advantage, but this is blessedly one of those moments where it gives her an edge, and she ducks her way through any resistance from the fleeing crowd. She inches along, following the Stormtroopers as they wind through the outskirts of the city, down to the oldest part, now mostly reduced to rubble after years of disuse. It gets harder, then, because the only thing more difficult than cutting through people running the opposite way is somehow remaining unseen despite being the only person but the soldiers foolhardy enough to be on the street.

All the while, she tries to get closer, tries to hear what their comlinks are reporting. She hears snatches of it: _heavy fire. Casualties. Reinforcements. Slums. Alliance attack._ Only enough to keep her maddeningly worried for Cassian. Only enough to tell her that the Stormtroopers aren’t being turned back, which means Cassian is still alive.

* * *

Finally, after impossibly long minutes of trying to subtly track a squad of Stormtroopers through an empty city street, the Stormtroopers slow their jog and wait for orders, milling into a large square, mostly surrounded by half-crumbled facades, window frames empty. There’s another squad of Stormtroopers already here. Maybe fifteen more, most of them focused on a building just across the square from Jyn. It looks like the sturdiest one here. The door is closed. No windows. If she was Cassian, that would be the only choice.

Jyn’s breath and heart both catch in her throat, and she pushes up against the stone wall of a crumbling doorway near the entry to the square. This old quarter was probably the hub of the city once, but now it looks abandoned except for signs of life: laundry fluttering in empty windows, the occasional face peering over the tops of rooves. The door she’s standing by is half-rotted wood, and she can see curious faces within. Children, she thinks. Peeking out. Eyes wide. Fearful. She gestures for them to get back, and they scurry.

The Stormtroopers ahead are talking amongst themselves, and she stills her breathing so she can better hear their altered voices.

“Got a rebel spy holed up in the old clinic,” one says.

“A rebel spy? On _Kopha_?” one of the others asks.

“They’re quick. You have to give them that. They must have heard about the blockade plans. Or the counterattack.”

“If they heard about the counterattack, they wouldn’t be sending a single spy to check it out,” another Stormtrooper points out. Jyn can hardly contain her incredulity. She wishes she had a recorder, but instead she just inches closer, sliding along the wall, straining her ears. _Why are Stormtroopers always so talkative?_

“Unless he’s not the only one.”

“He’s the only one. We would have heard about a whole squadron landing on Kopha. The main Garrison has nothing to report.”

“So, what, they sent a single spy to check it out and he somehow found out where we were hiding? Are they sure it isn’t just one of those bottom-feeding resistance goons?”

“Nah, he took out one of those bounty hunters and four of us before they got him on the run. That’s not a Kophan with a big ego.”

Some odd, mechanical sounding chuckles, then. _Get back to the counterattack_ , Jyn wants to say.

But one of the Stormtroopers says, “which building is he in? Are they even sure he’s in there?”

“The only building in this square that has a working door. You wanna go check it out, be my guest. Orders are to wait until they can get a couple blaster cannons up from the main building. Take the door down, hopefully grab the spy alive.”

“What if he’s already reported in?”

“Then I guess we’re screwed.”

More laughter. Jyn is getting impatient. She’s itchy to pop out from behind her wall and start blasting, but she knows it’s important to listen as much as she can. This is why they’re here. This is their mission. Jyn might have a problem with the ease with which Cassian puts the mission in front of his own safety, but she also understands that this is what he would want her to do.

Finally, _finally_ , someone says, “the Rebels are busy with their evacuation. My guess is this is just some Alliance-affiliated asshole who happened to notice something fishy. He can try to get the word out, but my credits are on there being no one listening.”

“Bombing run, counterattack, they all require it to be a total surprise.”

“Yeah, no shit.”

“I’m saying we need to take this guy out before he raises _anyone_ on his comlink. Do any of _you_ want to be the one to explain to command why our people get blasted out of Yavin’s sky when it turns out the Rebels had warning?”

That’s enough, Jyn thinks. Now she just has to figure out how to take out more than forty troops with her single blaster.

Fortunately for her, Stormtroopers really do _not_ know when to shut up.

“Someone just throw a grenade, then,” says one, sparking more laughter. “End the spy here, just to be safe.” A command follows from another one, who must be senior in some way, to be quiet.

Jyn takes a sharp breath. Grenade. Good idea.

She pulls her two thermal detonators from her belt and ducks out into the open, hurling them in low arcs, sending them rolling into the center of the square where the troopers are gathered, waiting for orders. That’s the good thing about being on a small team like this, especially when your leader is currently cut off and unable to communicate: you don’t have to wait for anything.

She’s running back up the road by the time the explosion hits. She knows it won’t have taken out all of them, especially not the cluster she was close enough to listen to, and she’s hoping the ones that are left will be angry enough to follow this sprinting woman instead of waiting where they’re supposed to. She’s looking for a break in the buildings, any sort of alley or crumbled-enough door that she can duck through. A series of blaster bolts hit the dirt behind her. Some streak over her head. One comes _too_ close to her left ear, but none of them land. She chances a look over her shoulder and sees that probably half of the Stormtroopers are now pursuing her.

“Down, little sister!” yells a familiar voice, and she hits the ground, covering her head, listening to the comforting sounds of Baze’s massive weapon firing, shooting off blaster bolt after blaster bolt, taking out at least five of the bastards who are slow enough to get caught. The rest quickly learn from their mistakes and scramble back, opening fire.

“Up, over here!” says Chirrut, and she spots him standing off to the side, beckoning her into an alley. Baze ducks into an alley on the other side of the road, and Jyn scrambles to her feet, careening past Chirrut and between the two buildings, the warrior whirling his staff around as he spins out into the open, just in time to take a running Stormtrooper in the face.

“Keep going!” Baze says, firing again, and Jyn listens.

She’s not totally sure of the layout of this area of the city, but she’s certain enough in her own powers of direction, and she keeps running until she finds another narrow alleyway that heads back towards the square she just left. Scrambling over abandoned crates, barrels, netting tangling around her feet, she practically rolls into the dirt square, falling to her knees. Three troopers, having apparently decided not to follow her after the explosion, are encroaching on the building where Cassian is hiding. They turn in unison to see what the noise is all about, but she finds that her fear has given her a steady hand, and she takes them out with three shots.

The rest of the troopers in the square are dead.

She gets up, frantic, her blaster still ready. They don’t have much time. _Blaster cannon_ , one of those troopers said. She’s not sticking around to see the blaster cannon.

“Cassian?” she calls, pounding on the door to the clinic once she steps over one of the bodies sprawled in her way. “Cassian!”

The door opens, heaved aside, and Cassian emerges from within.

_Ah_ , _so he_ is _going to be angry about this_ , is her first thought, seeing the deep lines on his face, the scowl that precedes the storm.

(Actually, the first thought is an entirely too breathless _he’s alive_ ).

He’s sweat-covered, chest heaving, but otherwise unharmed.

“You’re all right?” she asks, and he nods. He looks utterly murderous. Which is probably why she so quickly says, “they’re planning a bombing run and a counterattack on what’s left of our forces on Yavin. They’re amassing troops here, using it as a place to gather. Probably because of its proximity.”

Murderous intentions forgotten, Cassian’s brow instead furrows with confusion as he starts to lead the way back toward one of the side streets.

“What?” he asks. “How do you know that?”

“Stormtroopers are talkative, and I’m a good listener,” Jyn replies with a cheeky smile that Cassian _almost_ seems to return.

There’s a moment of brief hope. Maybe he won’t be so angry after all.

Saw has, presumably, got his spectral head in his spectral hands.

The blaster shot hits her in the calf. Not the first time she’s been shot there, and it could be worse, but it still sends her reeling, cursing, flinging her arm up to shoot back, taking out two more troopers before a third from across the square shoots her again, this time in the arm, and she drops her blaster.

More troopers follow those three newcomers, swarming out of the street ahead.

At this point, she really, _really_ hopes Saw isn’t watching.

“Jyn! This way!”

Cassian’s firing, backing up, giving Jyn time to backtrack, darting into a sidestreet that leads back up the hill, her fingers clamping on the injury on her arm, her breath coming in short gasps. Cassian is on her quickly, arm around her waist, hauling her up, keeping her going his speed even when she’s certain she can’t go any faster.

“Here, here!” Baze yells, appearing in an intersection ahead.

They probably would have made a clean escape if the Stormtrooper hadn’t burst through that doorway, swinging his blaster rather than firing it, catching Cassian on the underside of the chin. Cassian’s lost balance sends them both down, and the Stormtrooper grapples with Jyn. She’s dazed, injured, but has never fought back harder, the muscles in her injured arm crying out as she wraps steady fingers around the blaster and refuses to let go, the two of them sliding in the dirt, back down the hill.

There’s no time for panic. No time for _there are more of them coming. There are more of them behind you_. There’s only this Stormtrooper’s terrifying, blank mask in front of her, making their grunting noises of exertion sound less human. There is only her own frantic breath in her ears. Baze is firing at the troopers still coming, Chirrut pulling Cassian to his feet. Jyn rolls with the Stormtrooper, finally releasing the blaster to grab their mask and slam their head against the ground.

In the confusion, in the smoke, in the loud beeping of the grenade as it flies over Jyn’s head from one of the troopers below and then rolls back down towards her, down the sloping dirt street, she realizes just how far she has somehow gotten from her team. She looks up at them, still crouched over the unconscious trooper in the middle of the road, and sees their faces, sees their eyes following the bumbling roll of the detonator with dawning, almost slow-motion horror.  

“Jyn!” Cassian cries, hoarse and loud over the myriad other sounds competing for her attention.

There’s a low stone wall that surrounds the nearest dwelling, and she limps to her feet just to hurl herself for it, taking three lunging steps, barely reaching it when the bomb detonates. Mid-air, she feels her whole body flip, momentum spinning her even further, and she lands hard on her back, her head cracking against the stone.

Pain. Nausea. Exploding, white-hot stars behind her vision.

Ringing, too. Slowly fading, replaced with blaster fire and someone shouting her name.

She sits up slowly, her whole world weaving, a dizzying vertigo that makes her have to swallow back vomit. She knows she has to get up. Knows she has to turn around. The smoke around her is heavy, and she’s trying to figure out if she’s dying or just dazed, and moving seems like the most difficult challenge she’s had to face yet, but she does it.

Through the smoke, she can see only troopers. They’re pushing their way up the hill, firing. Baze’s blaster bolts are coming out of the smoke, still going, but they aren’t going to be able to hold off for long. Jyn uses the building next to her to pull herself up, trying to gain her footing. She has to close her eyes to fight back the nausea. _Come on, Jyn. You gotta get up_. It sounds like Bodhi’s voice, for some reason. Cassian calls her name again, and she can’t tell if he’s farther away than he was before, or if her hearing’s just shot. She wants to yell back, let him know she’s still alive, but the troopers haven’t noticed her yet, and she’s disappointed Saw’s ghost enough for one day.

She inches backwards, along the building, hoping that she can get to the corner and buy herself a few more seconds. Let her head clear, let the troopers move on, and then maybe…

But of course it couldn’t be that simple. As she turns the corner, she feels a blaster press against her hip.

“Don’t move,” a quiet voice says.

* * *

Cassian, as Jyn predicted, is bad at following his own orders.

“We have to go back for her,” he says. Bodhi won’t look at him. Baze and Chirrut seem equal parts annoyed and unimpressed. Cassian feels like the only person making any sense, but in a distant way, he knows he isn’t. Actually, they’re the ones with sense, with tact, with apologetic expressions. Cassian knows that this is, objectively, where he’s supposed to cut their losses and think to himself, _another soldier lost in the service of the Rebellion_. A twinge of sadness, of pity, but ultimately understanding that this war is bigger than just one life.

But objectivity can’t change the insistent, oddly young voice inside his head that keeps saying, _but it’s Jyn. It’s_ Jyn!

“I don’t want to leave her any more than you do,” Baze says, because none of the others will speak. “But we both saw it. She’s in their hands now if she isn’t…”

But even Baze, most practical among them, most blunt and ready to say what needs saying, can’t quite go so far.

“If she isn’t dead already,” Cassian finishes for him, sneering the words as if they are an impossibility, though they both saw her go down, both saw the explosion. “I can’t leave until I know for sure.”

“She’s…if she’s with them…” Bodhi whispers hoarsely. Cassian looks at him, watches the pilot struggle with what he has to say next. “She took one of the pills from your drawer, Cassian. “

“What.”

It’s flat, barely a question, because he can’t think of a single response to have to that information.

(The others all think he has never looked younger, more unprepared, and they’re all wondering how they’re supposed to make the difficult call if even _he_ can’t do it.)

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think…you know how she is. She was going to go after you no- no matter what you said. And she must have…I mean, she just…”

Cassian holds up his hand, asking for silence. Bodhi looks away again. Baze watches Cassian carefully. Chirrut looks, as always, mildly perturbed, like he can’t quite figure out _what’s_ going to happen, but knows enough of the pieces that he doesn’t like it.

“Bodhi, you take the others and you get away from here,” Cassian finally says. Baze rolls his eyes. “You need to transmit a message to the Rebellion. Tell them that the Empire is planning a counterattack on Yavin, and they’re gathering forces here. There are not many. A strong show of ground troops will put an end to it.”

“And you go back out there by yourself, I suppose?” Chirrut asks.

“No one to watch your back,” Baze points out.

“Worked well enough for me in the past.”

“Except the very recent past of _today_ ,” Chirrut reminds him, incredulous. Cassian ignores that.

“If the Rebels are coming - if _we_ \- are coming, then shouldn’t we _all_ just go?” Bodhi asks, a little plaintive. “It’s either too late or it isn’t. You going out there now isn’t going to help anything.”

“Where was this when Jyn left, huh?” Cassian asks, which is an unfair question and he knows it, but Bodhi surprises him by refusing to back down.

“She could actually make a difference! She knew you were being chased, that was all. _You_ know she’s hurt, captured, maybe dead. _You_ know she took one of your blasted pills. If anyone else wanted to go back for someone after something like this happened, you would be saying the same thing to them. You’d be telling them it was foolish, hopeless. You would refuse to let them go.”

“That’s why I’m not asking any of you to come with me,” Cassian answers. There’s defeat in his tone. He knows that what Bodhi says is true.

“You can’t expect us to just leave you here,” Bodhi says.

“That’s exactly what I expect. Jyn overheard the Stormtroopers talking about the counterattack. That’s the message. That’s the most important part. Get clear of Imperial space and send it. Tell them what I’ve done if you must. Ask for orders.”

“You’re mad. Both of you. It’s like wrangling rathtars, trying to keep you two alive,” Bodhi insists, pointing a shaking finger in Cassian’s face. Cassian ignores him.

“I’m not leaving either,” Chirrut decides, standing up. Baze gives his customary long-suffering sigh. “Come now, Baze. You don’t want to leave Jyn either. And no, Captain, you cannot order us.”

“I can, but I have a feeling that won’t be much use,” Cassian admits. Chirrut smiles blithely.

“Why do you always want to do the most dangerous thing?” Baze asks.

“Because it is almost always the right thing,” Chirrut replies, ready with a rejoinder as always. “You’ll be coming too, then, I suppose?”

“You know damn well I’ll follow you. You don’t have to be so smug about it.”

Another laugh, and Cassian turns away from it, gathering the rest of his things.

“Bodhi?” he says, and the pilot meets his eye, his brow furrowed. “You know what you have to do.”

“I’m the only one who doesn’t get a choice, right?” Bodhi asks, weary.

“I’m sorry.”

“I know what I have to do. Just…hurry. You’d know her better than me, but I don’t think…I mean, she didn’t seem like she would hesitate to use it.”

Cassian does not need to be told that, considering not an hour ago he was holding the pill in his hands, crouched inside that dark, dusty building, failing to come up with any alternative.

“I know,” he says. “I’ll hurry. I promise.”


	4. Seriously, I Can Go In There and Do Some Tweaking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has continued to read and comment on this! I'm gonna try to be better about responding to comments, I promise!

Jyn hates few things more than she hates surprises. It’s been too long since she was a girl, since surprises meant new toys or a visit from a friend she wasn’t expecting to see. Surprises are usually things like blaster bolts or sudden betrayals.

That being said, it’s a nice sort of surprise that when she wakes up, it isn’t in an Imperial prison.

One of her hands is cuffed to the metal gurney beneath her, but she can feel medigel on her wounds, and both her wrist and her calf are bandaged tightly. The Empire wouldn’t have done anything to make sure she wasn’t in pain. In fact, they’d have used it. Wobani wasn’t Jyn’s first sojourn in Imperial custody. She knows better than she would like to how they get their answers even to the unimportant questions.

She tries to look around without moving too much, but she could be anywhere. Blank, metal room. Black walls. Silver floor. She isn’t in the old quarter anymore, but she isn’t in the wealthy area either. The marketplace, maybe. One of the shops. Underground, she thinks, because it’s cooler in a way that doesn’t feel like enviro controls.

Only one arm is cuffed, which was lazy of them. A mistake, too. She pulls her left leg up and pokes her free fingers into her boot, scratching at the lining until she frees the thin wire she stashed in here.

Upstairs somewhere: voices. She freezes, trying to listen to what they’re saying, trying to decide if she should feign sleep or work more quickly. She can’t hear anything, but in the end she chooses action.

Saw taught her well. As a small woman, especially when she was so young, she was ever the thief when they needed one. Little Jyn could slip undetected into almost anything, so it stood to reason that she should know how to slip undetected through any locked doors.

By the time her captors enter the room, she’s already up and moving away from them, crouching, hissing in pain as the muscles in her injured calf protest, her hands lighting on the nearest thing she can grab to use for a weapon, which is a small metal table that looks like it’s probably used to hold medical supplies.

Three humans. One Rodian. They’re not armed until they walk in, but they react quickly enough, and two of them pull their blasters.

“Well,” one of the humans says. Male. Dark skin. Bigger than her by an amount that tells her she probably won’t win any fights, even if he’s one of the ones who remains unarmed. “She’s definitely awake.”

“Sorry, thought she’d be out longer,” says another human, this one a woman with bronze skin. “Didn’t want to give her too much.”

“Who are you?” Jyn asks. She has a vague memory of seeing the man and the Rodian out in the streets. _Don’t move_ , the man had said.

“Same question we had for you, actually,” the man says. He’s annoyingly unconcerned by her. “We were hoping to get to that back aboveground, but you passed out before we could get any answers. Seems like you took a couple hard hits from the Imperials. That’s why we helped you. I’m hoping you don’t make us regret that.”

Relief floods her system, and she puts down the small table, standing up from her defensive posture. This, this compliance, is as much as part of Saw’s strategy as the grabbing of the table was in the first place. She doesn’t know who these people are, but if they trust her, they’ll be more likely to let her walk out of here, and she can find her friends.

“You’re not with the Empire?” she asks, making her voice go small and hopeful. The man smiles. The second human man, older, with pale skin, lowers his blaster. Only the Rodian remains armed.

“No, kid,” the older man says. “We’re with the resistance.”

“I heard them talking about you. The troopers.”

“Oh, so they know we exist,” the woman says with amusement, glancing at the younger man. “Progress.” She walks forward, extending her hand. Jyn, after a show of hesitation, takes it. “I’m Kir.”

“Myrnel,” the man with the dark skin offers. The older man hesitates, so Myrnel says, “That’s Wex. The Rodian is Biso.”

“Liana,” Jyn says, shaking Kir’s hand. “Thank you, sincerely, for getting me off the street. But I really need to go. My friends. They need to know I’m okay. How long?”

Kir and Myrnel exchange glances that tell Jyn it’s not good.

“Two hours,” Kir says, finally. “You woke up once and came at me with a scalpel. I dosed you and cuffed you. Removed anything sharp from the room.”

“I’m sorry,” Jyn says, even though she isn’t. Saw’s training doesn’t go away even when you’re half-conscious and injured.

“It’s fine. I’m fine. But your friends…”

“Three human males, right?” Wex asks. When Jyn nods, trying to hide her eagerness, he continues, “saw ‘em from the rooftops. Helped them much as I could, picking off the troopers following them. Watched ‘em get back to their ship.”

He hesitates, and Jyn closes her eyes.

“Say it,” she says, quiet.

“The ship took off. I’m sorry.”

Jyn’s chest squeezes shut tight to hear that, and she sits down against the gurney, struggling to breathe around the surprising, crushing sadness.

It makes sense. Leaving makes sense. Cassian made the right decision. It would be foolish to feel betrayed, angry about this. It was the right call. The call she _should_ have made. Cassian told her what to do, and she didn’t listen. Why would she think, even for a second, that he wouldn’t take the chance she hadn’t?

She isn’t angry. Not really. But rationality doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.

 _What do you think he would do?_ She’d asked Bodhi, and she had been so sure of her answer. Now, it feels foolish. Of course he left.

There just isn’t time to let it hurt the way it wants to.

“When did they leave?” she asks.

“About an hour ago, maybe more,” Wex answers. Jyn nods, thoughtful. So she’s good and stranded, but at least the Alliance knows about the counterattack. She wonders what the protocol is for this. Is she supposed to try and find a way to get word to high command? Is she supposed to wait until the Alliance comes back? Or is she supposed to steal a ship and get back to Yavin herself?

“You’re with them, right?” Kir asks, and Jyn realizes that Kir may be even younger than herself. She asks the question as if she doesn’t dare to hope.

“With who?”

“With the Rebels? The Alliance?”

Jyn hesitates. This, she thinks, is definitely _not_ protocol. But she nods anyway (Cassian, she thinks, is probably going to kill her himself if she doesn’t get herself killed before he can). Kir’s smile lights up her face, and she steps closer.

“We’ve been following the news about the Death Star. About the Rebel victory. A lot of people here don’t believe it. They think it’s false propaganda, spread by the Rebels. Is it true? Was there really a ship big enough to destroy a planet?”

Jyn nods, weary.

“They destroyed Alderaan,” she says. “Jedha City, too. Even their own Imperial installation on Scarif.”

From the look on Kir’s face, she can tell that the names of these distant planets don’t mean anything to her. Either that, or she’s having trouble visualizing the idea of an entire planet existing in one moment and then being vaporized in the next. It’s hard to blame her. Jyn still can’t believe it.

“What’s the alliance doing here?” Wex asks.

Maybe it’s the head injury. Maybe it’s the exhaustion or the fact that Cassian and the others left her here ( _as they should have!_ she reminds herself again). But she answers honestly. Part of it is because she’s sure that Wex is asking these questions as a test. Stuck on this moon, she’s going to need friends if she’s going to figure out how to get back home.

“We heard word of a second garrison of Stormtroopers gathering. Increased Imperial movements. A contact we had in the city pointed us in the right direction.”

“But you were attacked.”

“Yes.”

“I watched you. Watched you following the troops. Wondered what a young girl like you was doing following a whole squad of Stormtroopers like that in broad daylight. That was a brave thing to do.”

“Foolish thing to do,” Jyn says with a small smile. “My Captain certainly wasn’t happy with me.”

“Would that be the man whose life you saved?” Wer asks. “If he was unhappy about anything, it was with leaving you in the road. Fought those other two the whole way back.”

Jyn suppresses the flutter of emotion in her chest, stamping it down with a sharp smile.

“I don’t need to be told that. Or comforted. Thank you for trying, but he made the right decision.”

But Wex only smiles at her, and Jyn knows she wasn’t entirely successful in hiding the tremor in her voice.

“Is there anything we can do?” Kir asks. “We don’t have much. The resistance isn’t a real military outfit, not like the Alliance. Most of our equipment is old, falling apart. But if we can help you get back…”

“I don’t…know,” Jyn admits. She feels adrift. Lost.

Not for the first time, the idea of running is vaguely appealing. This would be the perfect time to do it. They already think she’s dead. Jyn Erso could remain a casualty of war, this time. She could find a new alias. She could leave this planet and go anywhere.

But there’s a tether tying her to Rogue One even now, even after they’ve left her here, and she pushes the thought of running back into the corner of her mind where it belongs.

Her mind goes quickly through the possibilities. Not that there are many, but she gives equal consideration to ideas that Cassian would probably have shot down as soon as she brought them up. Alone, there’s a greater variety than if she was with her team.

_Alone._

That strikes something in her, and she looks up at the four people in front of her.

“I have an idea,” she says, a smile spreading slowly across her face. “But I’m not sure how easy it’ll be.”

Luckily, that seems to please Myrnel more than anything she’s said so far.

“Well, Liana. Let’s hear it.”

* * *

They bring the woman to her, rather than the other way around. It’s not ideal: the blue-skinned Chiss seems irritated to have been so politely abducted from her shop, so they’re already off to a rocky start. But Wex judges it too dangerous to send Jyn aboveground. The troopers are always restless in this quarter, and they’re even more fired up after losing almost forty to a single woman. He and Biso go together, leaving Kir and Myrnel with her.

The Chiss woman is tall and beautiful, with a haughty, Coruscant lilt to her voice, same as Jyn. After a tense introduction, she sits down on one of the chairs in the small room, and she waits.

“I’m guessing I’m not here for smalltalk, so let’s get to it. I’m the mechanic. You need a mechanic. I’m guessing prosthetic parts? I can configure those fine. Not my specialty, but I can do it.”

“She’s healed up, She’bara,” Kir says.

“She can speak for herself,” She’bara replies. Her red eyes swivel to Jyn curiously. “Or _can_ she?”

“She can,” Jyn says. She has her arms folded across her chest, one hip tilted upward, and She’bara grins to hear her accent.

“How interesting to meet you. You’re not from Kopha. Then again, if you were from Kopha, you’d know there’s only one Chiss on this rock, and she’s the mechanic.”

“I want a droid.”

“You could’ve just come in during shop hours, love.”

“An Imperial Security droid. KX series. These people say you can help me.”

She’bara huffs out a laugh and raises her eyebrows, glancing back at Wex.

“What’ve you brought me, here?” she asks. “This isn’t resistance. KX series droid? You’d have to be mad, and you aren’t.”

Wex hesitates, but Myrnel says, “she’s Alliance.”

Kir sucks in a breath at that, and Jyn is immediately on the defensive. She’bara looks back at her again. Jyn doesn’t think it’s her imagination that the Chiss woman’s eyes are cooler than they were before.

“The Alliance. Of all the fool things…look, girl. I’ve no love for the Empire. But that doesn’t mean the Rebels have any of my fondness either. These dreamers might’ve convinced you their resistance is stronger than it is, but you should know that it isn’t. The Empire, the Rebellion, it’s all the same to everyone here. You know they strip-mined this moon for the steel to build their fleets? Strip-mined nearly every planet and rock in this system. Lot of people signed up, because you might as well get paid if your planet’s going to be desecrated anyway. Lotta people died when your Rebellion blew it all to hell. Whole planets that will never recover because their resources are gone, their sons and daughters are gone, everything is gone. I know you don’t need to hear that. You’re a foot soldier like all the rest, right? I’m just saying there are two ways to look at it.”

_Jyn’s shaking hand pushing the lever, transmitting the plans._

“Right, of course,” she says, because Jyn has never had Galen Erso’s flaw, the inability to lie when it would serve him best. She smiles. “I had nothing to do with the Death Star at all. We just…we just do what we’re told.”

“Same as the Empire, the Chiss points out, as if that’s a winning argument, and Jyn has a particularly cringeworthy flashback to the moment she said the same words to Cassian. _Might as well be a Stormtrooper._ She smiles, and it feels like swallowing a scream.

“Maybe we aren’t so different after all. Empire. Rebellion. Aside from the whole, blowing up planets without provocation thing,” she says.

She really _was_ going to try to play nice, but she was raised by a man who believed in fighting. She was hardly going to _not_ stick up for her new home. Luckily, the Chiss laughs.

“We hear a different story here,” she says.

“There’s a surprise.”

“It’s not always easy to tell what’s right and what’s wrong. I admire your certainty. I also think it’s naïve.”

“I thought so too, once. But I’ve seen firsthand what the Empire is willing to do to secure its power. It may say it’s for our own good, but I haven’t seen any of that. I’ve seen the inside of a labor camp. I’ve been on two planets as their secret project fired. Obliterated hundreds of thousands of lives in an instant. I pity the people who lost their lives because they bowed to the Empire. Because they didn’t know what else to do. I understand them. But I don’t think the answer is to let the oppression continue. It would have only meant more death. Maybe not to the people who submitted, but to the people who wouldn’t. It depends on where you’re standing.”

 _And it depends on who is standing with you_ , she reminds herself, feeling another pang of Cassian-shaped betrayal that she tries to shove down because she knows it isn’t fair.

“I like you,” the Chiss woman decides. “Can’t say I agree, but I like that you’re dedicated. You see too much complacency on this moon. Even me. Even them, the resistance. They’ll let things slide until they don’t remember what things used to be like before.”

“I know the feeling,” Jyn admits. The Chiss woman sticks out a hand.

“She’bara,” she says.

“Liana,” Jyn replies.

“Well, Liana. You’re in luck. I’ve got a few KX series I’m supposed to be upgrading for the Empire. But you’ve got to convince me. I can’t say I’m thrilled with the idea of giving one to you. One or a few go missing, they’ll think the error was on their end. They’re sloppy at keeping track of their resources, though I’m sure you know that. But one of those things escapes and starts raising hell, they’re going to suspect me. I can’t have that. Not to mention those things are damn near impossible to reprogram, so like as not you’d end up dead before you got to use it.”

“The reprogramming won’t be an issue. I have a drive. You just need to switch them out, correct?” At She’bara’s reluctant nod, Jyn continues, “and I’m not going to use him to do anything to the Empire. I just want to get off this moon and get back home. He’ll be able to help me.”

“He, huh?”

“An old friend,” Jyn says, smiling what she hopes is a winning smile. She’bara considers for so long a moment that Jyn is convinced she’s going to say no.

Then, finally, “we’ll need to get you to my shop.”

* * *

“Stop,” Chirrut hisses. His staff impacts against Cassian’s chest, surprising the Rebel spy into unquestioning compliance. Chirrut sweeps the staff, and Cassian with it, back against the rock wall of the nearest dwelling, and Cassian presses against it as two Stormtroopers patrol by the entrance to the alley.

“Did you hear about the market?” one asks.

“Yeah. Too bad. We aren’t getting any time off today, though. It’ll be open again by…”

Their conversation drifts away, and Cassian lets out a relieved sigh, pushing the staff away gently.

“Thanks,” he says. It comes out clumsier than he would like it to. He’s still a little annoyed that so far today only one person on his team has followed his orders, and even that was done resentfully enough to make him feel guilty for giving them.

“We need a plan. And we need to blend in better,” Baze says. Dressed without his usual armor, the big man looks strange and shrunken. He also looks vulnerable to attack. Chirrut is wearing less colorful robes, Cassian a different jacket than what he was wearing before, but Baze is right; they stick out.

“I know a tailor,” Cassian says, trying not to let his frustration show, though he doesn’t think he’s very successful at that. “We can start there. She knows the city better than anyone. She can tell us how to find wherever they brought Jyn, and she might be able to get us some help.”

“Jyn will be all right,” Chirrut says suddenly, the first positive thing he’s said in a while, and Cassian is like a man drowning as he looks back at his friend, feeling for all the world like Chirrut is offering him a tether to dry land.

“You know this?” he asks.

“He feels it,” Baze replies, in the same moment Chirrut says, “I feel it.”

“That’s not good enough,” Cassian says.

“It’s all I can offer you.”

Cassian isn’t sure what to say to that. He just turns and keeps walking. To Pouli’s, next. And then to Jyn, wherever she might be.

* * *

The shop is cluttered, but in an organized way that makes it feel homey. There are scraps and bits of droids everywhere, including the head of an old farming droid that makes Jyn nostalgic when she reaches out a hand touch it.

“I’m still not sure why you’d want one of these things,” She’bara says as she heads to the back of the store, punching in the lock code on the door. Kir helps Jyn shed the heavy cloak she’s been sweating under the whole way here, and Jyn murmurs a thank you, snapping out of her momentary distraction. “They’re phasing them out, you know. This upgrade they’ve ordered is really a last resort. They’ve had a lot of problems with these.”

“Yeah, me too,” Jyn says with a half laugh, but her affected cynicism is ruined by the fact that she’s practically pressed up against She’bara, trying to see past her to the dark room beyond.

This room is smaller than the storefront, and much messier. Various parts are placed haphazardly on shelves, most gathering dust, with SALE or DISCOUNT stickers on them. Some of the larger models hang from the ceiling in wire netting, limbs dangling awkwardly, looking tortured even though their circuits have probably rusted.

And standing against the wall, whole and gleaming, is a whole row of exactly what she came for.

“And they work?” she asks, pulling open her jacket and rummaging in the inner pocket for the disk.

“They work. Upgrade wasn’t for any fatal flaw or anything. Just some personality defects. But you realize what these things do, right? How sure are you about the reprogramming? You trust the idiot who did it?”

“I trust him completely, and the reprogramming is sound,” Jyn says. She’s not actually sure how true the second part is, but the first should cover it. She trusts Cassian’s work.

She hands over the disk, and She’bara gives her a long, unamused look.

“This is a lot of trust I’m putting in you,” she finally says.

“Likewise,” Jyn replies. She’bara sighs and gets to it. The personality core pops out easily enough, and She’bara loads the disk into the empty slot.

“This will override its core programming,” she says. “Can I ask you what this is going to do? What do you even hope this’ll accomplish? Because unless this programming teaches him how to turn into a starfighter…”

“As helpful as that would be, I doubt it,” Jyn laughs. “But K will know better than me how to get home.”

It’s telling to her, she thinks, that Cassian is the first thing she sees when she says the word.

She’bara sighs, looking from Jyn to Kir and back. Kir takes out her blaster, holds it down by her leg.

“Just in case,” she offers. Jyn nods, and She’bara activates the droid.

It moves, jerking its head up, eyes lighting as She’bara pulls out her own blaster, backing up, giving it room.

“Who are you?” asks the familiar robotic voice, and for a moment, Jyn is sure that it didn’t work after all, but then K-2SO’s head swivels towards her, his eyes narrowing in focus. “Jyn Erso. Well. I suppose this means I died on Scarif, then. But _you_ made it. How wonderful.”

And Jyn is so relieved that she doesn’t even bother to reprimand him for blowing her cover with She’bara and Kir.

“I’m glad to see you too, K,” she says.

“Oh, is that what you got from my tone? My circuits must not be working. That’s not what I meant at all.”

“Your circuits are fine,” She’bara says. If K-2SO had eyebrows, he would have been raising them.

“My left knee joint isn’t properly calibrated. But I’m sure you’re right. I’m sure I should just trust that everything else is _fine._ ”

“Is this the personality you _wanted_ it to have?” She’bara asks.

“My wants have nothing to do with it,” Jyn mutters. Looking at K-2SO, she specifies, “that’s a ‘no’.”

“Yes, I understood that, thank you.”

“What _is_ it?” Kir asks.

“I’m a reprogrammed imperial security droid. What are you?” K-2SO asks, clearly offended.

“He’s a friend,” Jyn replies, though reluctantly. He _was_ a friend, toward the end, but he doesn’t seem to remember that part. “When did you last back up your data?”

“Cassian told me that we were going to help you get to Scarif. He said it was going to be very dangerous. I always back up my data if something is going to be dangerous. Tell me….” He hesitates, as if he doesn’t want to ask her what he’s about to. “You have my data. Why do you have my data? Is Cassian…okay?”

Relieved, Jyn almost laughs.

“Yes,” she says instead. “Cassian is fine. He’s safely on a ship back home.”

“Does he know you stole my data?”

“That’s a bit dramatic. I made a copy.”

“So that’s a no, then. Why am I not surprised?”

“Seriously, I can go in there and do some tweaking,” She’bara says.

“No, no. He’s perfect,” Jyn says, her withering sigh directly in contrast to her words. “K, we need to get home, but we’re stuck here without any way of contacting them. Any ideas?”

“Oh, I see. Cassian has abandoned you, so you’re using _me_ to get back in his good graces. Well it won’t work.”

“Maybe a little tweaking wouldn’t be the worst thing,” Jyn threatens.

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“You want to get back to see Cassian, right? Then you need to help me figure out how to contact the Alliance, or you need to help me find a ship and help me fly out of here. The Imperials are looking for me, because I blew up a few of them. Saving Cassian’s life, by the way! Cassian and the others must think I’m dead, or they just thought I was an acceptable loss, because they left me behind. I just want to get back there, K, please.”

“Saying please to a droid,” She’bara says, as if it was the most insane thing she had ever heard.

“Fine,” K-2SO says, prying off the loose restraints that were keeping him bound to the wall in a standing position. “But if any of it goes wrong, I’m telling Cassian it was your idea.”


	5. So I'm the Only One Who Died?

Cassian’s least favorite part of spy work has always been dressing up. He’s uncomfortable in anyone’s clothes but his own. The Rebellion suits him: its drab, worn-in jackets, handed down from people who died before him; pants that always seem a few bad days from tearing; shirts stained with dirt and sweat and blood. Clean, new clothing feels stiff and itchy, even when expertly made by someone like Pouli.

He, Baze, and Chirrut look like they belong here now, though. Their clothes mark them as the Kophan middle class. Chirrut and Baze walk arm and arm, and Cassian takes up the space beside them. To anyone on the street, they probably look like an older couple and their son, out for a walk.

“Be careful,” Pouli said before they left. “I haven’t heard anything about a capture or a death. If they haven’t got her, they’ll be looking, and they won’t make it easy for anyone who’s poking around where they shouldn’t be. I’ve already been hearing stories about the girl who took out half a garrison with two grenades. They won’t be likely to let that slide. I know I don’t have to tell you that.”

“No,” Cassian had admitted. “You don’t.”

Cassian has always had a good sense of direction. That comes with being a spy, with having to navigate your way through unfamiliar terrain without any guarantee of help. Despite the panicked fleeing without a direction that landed him in the old quarter in the first place, finding the area in which he last saw Jyn is easy. The most difficult part is regulating his stride, walking slowly enough to avoid sticking out. Chirrut and Baze several times have to remind him (in their laconic, irritatingly calm way) to slow down.

He understands, is the worst part. Just like he knew back on the ship that Bodhi was right, that he’s being a terrible spy and not too great a captain, at that, by running off in the direction Jyn was last in, heedless of the risks.

It’s Jedha. Eadu. Scarif. It’s climbing to the top of that tower (for the _Rebellion_ , he has told himself four thousand times since he saw her standing at the top, since he fired on that white-caped prick just in time to save her life) and doing everything he could to make sure she survived alongside him. It’s looking the situation in the face, the same way he has done over twenty long years, and seeing what the mission should be, and it’s turning away from it. It’s second nature, now, looking after her. Not letting himself wonder _why_ until later. Not letting himself consider words like _expendable_ and _liability_ , though they’ve been beaten into him often enough by his superiors, by the people who trained him.

He understands that everything he’s doing is counter to that, and yet here he is anyway, putting more people at risk because of this unquantifiable feeling he has that if he abandons Jyn, if he gives up on her, it will be the worst thing he’s ever done for the cause.

* * *

By the time the trio reach the old quarter, the Stormtroopers have cleared out of the area entirely. There still aren’t many signs of life, but there are a few people sanding away the blaster burns on the sides of the stone dwellings, scrubbing away the blood and charred dirt in the street. They focus on the square, mostly, on the sand and dirt center and the crumbling surroundings where Jyn’s grenades did the most damage. Cassian pauses as they pass the still-open door to the old clinic, where he nearly took his own life.

“She was shot here, wasn’t she?” Chirrut asks quietly, head tilted in the direction of the doorway. Cassian swallows down a wash of unfair irritability.

“Yes,” he answers. “I didn’t see it happen, but she was limping after.”

Chirrut makes a noise halfway between distress and pity, and Cassian has to grind his teeth together to keep himself from asking what _that’s_ supposed to mean. If it’s important, Chirrut will tell him, and he’s already shown too much of his hand too many times when it comes to Jyn. He doesn’t need any more knowing looks from the two older warriors, especially not now that they’re laced with sadness. With anticipation of a total meltdown if they can’t find Jyn after all.

_I’m handling this_ , he tells himself, tells them, in his head. _I can handle this_.

As they make their way up the hilly side street where he and Jyn were separated, Cassian increases his pace, separates himself from Baze and Chirrut. He gives Baze a look that encompasses his plan and Baze, true to form, drops back, murmuring to his partner. At least _Baze_ manages to listen to him sometimes (provided, of course, that Cassian’s orders don’t interfere with Chirrut’s whims).

There are a handful of people to choose from. A few Rodians piecing a blown-out wall back together. Some children milling about, laughter loud and grating even though he can’t fault them for it. There’s a human woman scrubbing at the exact place where Jyn and the Stormtrooper landed before the grenade exploded and he lost sight of her.

_She was up. She was getting away_ , he reminds himself, biting back more frustration at how slow this is going. He walks up to the woman with the curious air of a man who has no idea where he is. Pretending successfully that his entire being isn’t focused on this one patch of road and the pinkish foam that this woman is pushing around on top of it.

“What happened here?” he asks her.

“What do you think? More fighting,” she says, hissed low, without looking up. Cassian moves closer, trying not to spook her. She’s older, patient, has a stooped and weary look to her that comes of years of living under a repressive regime, knowing enough to know it’s bad but not enough to know what to do about it. Yes, he chose correctly.

“I’m not from here,” he says. “I’m visiting my fathers. And they don’t tell me anything. They think I’ll worry.”

He gestures with his head to where Baze and Chirrut are pretending to casually stroll, further up the street, having affected sad but distant expressions like all the rest. If Cassian was in better humor, it would be a little amusing, watching Baze try to look like he isn’t dying to fight someone.

The woman looks, her lips pursed.

“Don’t know why they’d choose to come here. It’s not a safe place. Not even for people wealthy enough to afford those clothes. If I were you, I’d get them off this rock.”

“Why?”

The urgency in his voice might have made her wary – _it’s sloppy_ , Draven’s voice reminds him in his head – but he’s lucky that it doesn’t. It seems instead to galvanize her, and she looks both ways before speaking.

“The Imperials were bad enough, but now there are people who are starting to oppose them. The Rebellion, see, it’s given people ideas about how to get the Imperials out, and that means more fighting. Not much yet, not enough to raise too much alarm from most people, but it’s getting stronger. If you ask me, you ought to get your parents out of here. It’s only going to get worse.”

“But what about here, _right_ here?” Cassian asks, trying not to get frustrated. “Did you see what happened?”

“No, only heard about it after. But you can’t just leave the street like this. The Imperials aren’t going to clean up the blood they leave behind.”

“Blood from who?”

“Heard there was a girl caught in an explosion, but there wasn’t nearly enough of a mess for that.”

“No body?”

“No, no. But the Imperials were here. They probably took her. If not them, then surely the resistance. They operate around here. I saw a few of them on the rooftops when the Imperials were moving in.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

The woman gives Cassian a strange look, but murmurs that it’s no problem as he walks away to join his crewmates.

“Well?” Baze asks.

“No body. And there’s a resistance.”

“So we’re staying, then,” Baze says, sounding ambivalent to the idea, though Cassian knows there would be hell to pay if he tried to make the older man leave now.

“We’re staying,” Cassian confirms.

* * *

“So I’m the only one who died?”

“Didn’t I ask you to be quiet?”

“Yes, but I have questions.”

“You’re the only one who died.”

“Well I’m glad Bodhi made it. I like Bodhi.”

K-2SO’s praise of Bodhi, of course, with enough emphasis so Jyn will know that it’s in direct contrast to his feelings for _her_. Jyn stifles another sigh, because it’s getting predictable.

“I like Bodhi too,” she says, though she doesn’t have the energy to make it acidic. She _misses_ Bodhi. Misses his scattered thoughts and his stories about Galen and his need for reassurance that she is always all too happy to give him. Jyn used to be a solitary woman. No time or need for anyone. Now look at her. Separated for a few hours and already she’s feeling nostalgic. “You could’ve been a little nicer to She’bara,” she says, poking her head around the corner of the building to check the sightlines again. Still no movement from the Stormtrooper on the wall of the shuttle depot. Another glance at the window across the way shows her that Wex is still in place. “She was only trying to help.”

“Trying to help _you_ , not me.”

“You’re a broken droid,” Jyn says, barely hiding a smile. “She was trying to help all of us.”

“Ha. Ha.”

“Ugh. Don’t do that. Tell me you at least understand what you have to do.”

“Of course I know what I have to do. I came up with the best parts of the plan.”

“Repeat it back.”

“Cassian never makes me repeat it back.”

“Well Cassian isn’t here, is he?” Jyn asks. She regrets it immediately, because the tone was too obvious. Too snappish. Even K-2SO, with all his terrible social skills, has to hear the frustration, the anger, the hurt.

It would be a great time for him to make fun of her, but he doesn’t. That makes it even worse.

“I walk up to the depot as if I am allowed to be there. They will probably ask me what I’m doing. I will not hit them. I will say my master sent me for a reactor module because his civilian ship is not working, and he doesn’t want to bring it in. I am to imply that my master is Sergeant Park, whoever _that_ is…”

“She’bara says he’s someone important.”

“Oh, well if _She’bara_ says it…”

“How does Cassian put up with you?” Jyn wonders.

“Funny. I plan to ask him the same thing about you.”

“Focus. What then?”

“I persuade the trooper to let me borrow the shuttle to bring my master the part. This will not work, by the way. There is a twelve percent chance of success. And I know that those are the numbers, and that my analysis is sound, but I need to remark that twelve percent seems high.”

“K...”

“When that fails, I am allowed to kill the trooper and steal the ship.”

“And take the ship back to the outskirts. Wex and I will distract anyone who tries to follow you, and I’ll meet you out there.”

“Right. Is that sufficient, or do you want me to replay it again?”

She peaks her head around the corner. The trooper has moved to the other side of the hanger, and Wex gives her a thumbs-up.

“Okay, go. And be careful!”

K-2SO blessedly does not need to respond to that with any other snark, and he walks ‘casually’ toward the depot.

It does not look casual. It does not look casual at all. In fact, it’s painful to watch.

But he’s the only hope she has.

“You doing okay?” asks the quiet voice over her comlink. Kir, back at She’bara’s shop.

“We might need a backup plan,” Jyn admits. “I’ll be in touch.” Turning back to watch K-2SO raise his hand to the trooper in a stilted approximation of a friendly wave, she groans and rests her head against the building beside her. “Come on, K. Get us home.”

K-2SO says approximately four words to the trooper before he picks them up and throws them back against the wall.

And, well, Jyn isn’t sure exactly what she expected, but when the alarms start to blare from within the depot, she knows she should have been prepared for this.

“Twelve percent,” she mutters. Comlink up, she says, “Wex? We’re gonna need that diversion now. I’m going in.”

“Too dangerous,” Wex says, but a shot rings out: Wex taking care of the first troopers out of the building. K-2SO is picking up the murdered trooper’s blaster rifle, his movements graceful and unconcerned. If they get out of this, Jyn’s going to ask Cassian why his droid is so obsessed with weapons.

“Not a lot of options,” Jyn responds. She breathes in sharply and angles herself towards the gate to the depot yard. More troopers are pouring out of the small building, and K-2SO is still taking his time, firing back at them, backing towards the small shuttle. She can’t risk it _or_ K-2SO being taken down. She needs to do something.

Cursing under her breath, apologizing inwardly to Saw for her lack of planning, Jyn breaks cover and sprints out into the battle.

* * *

Cassian is beginning to lose hope. Kopha isn’t Jedha, isn’t open resentment and righteous anger. Kopha is insidious, is burning too deep beneath the surface to see, and Cassian doesn’t know how to expose it. The resistance operates in this quarter. That’s what the woman said. But finding them is a lot more difficult than stumbling into an operation the way he and Jyn did in Jedha City, and they don’t have time. If this was his mission, his goal, to infiltrate the resistance cell here, he would know exactly what to do. He would go to crowded places. He would watch the people there. He would follow Imperial troop movements and see who else was trying to stick to the shadows. But they don’t have the time for that; he needs to know _now_ who has Jyn.

_If it’s not too late_ , a quiet inner voice reminds him, and he has to bite back another loud string of curses that threatens to erupt. If they find her, if she’s still alive, he’s going to ask her what the hell she was thinking, and then he’s going to hide those pills somewhere she’ll never find them.

“I feel we don’t have much time,” Chirrut says. It’s the fourth time he’s said something of the sort, and Cassian gives Baze a warning look that the older man receives with a shrug.

“Helpful, thank you,” Cassian growls to both of them, though he knows anger is even _less_ helpful than vague premonitions of disaster.

They’re making another turn through the old quarter, looking for any signs of watchers on any of the roofs, hoping to see _someone_ who looks rebellious enough to answer some more questions, when a trooper barrels past them, down the street. Everyone freezes, even people who live here, waiting to see what will come next.

What comes next is another trooper. And another after that.

“Something tells me this is where we want to be,” Baze says.

“We need to hurry,” Chirrut replies.

Cassian doesn’t need the encouragement. Draven would be rolling his eyes if he could see the lack of care, the lack of patience in Cassian’s steps as he rounds the corner after the troopers that are amassing down the street, heading into an enclosed area that’s flying Imperial flags. There’s a wall around it, blocking Cassian’s view. He’ll need to get up higher if he’s going to see what’s going on.

It doesn’t take very long for him to find an appropriate alley, and he and his two companions dart into it, the warriors following him for the first time all day without questions or annoyed quips. Without breaking his stride, Cassian leaps onto a low roof and scrambles up the side of it. Baze and Chirrut wisely opt to stay on the ground, though both of them curse at Cassian and warn him to be careful as he climbs up to the higher two story building beyond it. Now he’s just above the wall. He just has to get close enough to see the courtyard beyond.

He drops to his stomach and crawls forward until he can peer over the edge. There’s a ring of fallen Stormtroopers in the center of what he can now see is an Imperial shuttle depot. Some of the dead have huge, sniper-shaped blaster burns in their heads and torsos, some have smaller blaster burns. It looks like an entire Rebel squadron came through here and took them out, and yet it isn’t surprising at all to see that out of all the still-standing people in his view, there’s only one dressed in civilian clothes.

Less surprising still is that it’s _her._

The breathlessness of his relief is almost equal to the breathlessness of his fear, because at least he knows now where she is. At least he’s here with her. But there are too many troopers between them, too many surrounding her with blasters drawn. She’s alone out there, her hands in bindings in front of her, her eyes big and worried.

“Jyn,” he growls, frustration and elation all at once. She doesn’t look badly injured, save for a rivulet of blood that trails down from her ear, but she’s unsteady on her feet. She doesn’t look to be in a state to fight one more trooper, let alone the thirteen who surround her.

“I’m telling you, I’m just trying to find somewhere to stay for the night,” she says to the officer in charge, a well-put-together man who looks her up and down with obvious disdain. “I thought it was better to ask an Imperial than trust some random person on the street! It was just bad timing. That sniper did this, not me. My name is Liana Prest. I got lost, and my traveling partners left me, and when the shooting started, I hid! I just need some time to…”

“Recover from your blaster burns, rebel?” the officer asks, and he jabs Jyn sharply in the side with his blaster, eliciting a ragged cry that makes Cassian’s stomach heave with guilt. His finger twitches on the trigger he wishes he had in his hands. She mentioned a sniper. Maybe she’s not alone. Maybe she…

“I just need _someone_ to contact my _traveling partners,_ ” Jyn says, her voice loud and obvious. “ _Someone_ needs to get off planet and _get out of here_ and _contact_ …”

“Is she talking to us?” Baze whispers, suddenly very close. Cassian looks back at the two of them, somehow crouched just behind him.

“What are you two doing here? Get back on the ground.”

“After the work it took to get him up? Not likely,” Baze snorts.

“Someone’s in a ship, there,” Chirrut says, his ear tilted towards the hanger, his finger following it. “She’s trying to tell them to take off and leave her, get in contact with us.”

“They aren’t listening,” Cassian says. The ship remains stationary. Jyn looks exhausted, glaring in its direction. She also looks _small_. Cassian’s finger twitches again.

“We could take them,” Baze decides. “If we had a few more guns.”

“Suppose I’ll just find some guns, then! Did you at least bring some grenades?”

“You said pistols only.”

“I didn’t think you would listen.”

“Neither did I,” Chirrut admits. “We need to let her know we’re here. She thinks we left her, and if they take her to a cell…”

“Yes, thank you, I understand that,” Cassian snaps. He can’t seem to keep a thought in his head for more than a moment. Everything is cold panic. This is why he prefers to work alone. This is why he doesn’t have a team, or partners, or whatever it is that Jyn is to him, that has him convinced that if something bad happens to her, his whole world will stop turning. This is why, because it’s a liability. Feelings are a liability. He used to understand that.

“I have an idea,” Chirrut offers.

“Is it something dangerous that will get you killed? Because if so, no,” Baze replies.

“Love, you are so pessimistic. I’ve never died before!”

“Mostly because of me.”

“And you’re still here, aren’t you?”

Baze mutters something unintelligible to that, and Cassian resists the urge to put his hands in his head in a gesture of total despair.

Then, down below, the ship begins to fire.

The Stormtroopers nearest the Rogue One crew go flying gracelessly through the air, their screams muffled by the blaster fire from their companions that soon follows. The small shuttle in the hanger is turning slowly, firing, picking off Stormtroopers, and Cassian watches with mounting horror as it arcs slowly, ever closer to Jyn, with no signs of stopping. Jyn kicks out at one of her captors, throws another over her shoulder.

“Jyn! Get down!” Cassian yells. His voice carries over the sounds of battle, and her eyes go straight to his, two stories up, and she listens. She hits the ground, flattening herself, covering her head, just as the ship takes out the last of her captors, who were too slow to follow her.

With a dying, sputtering sound, the ship stops firing.

Cassian has never climbed so quickly; he half falls from the second story, fingers and feet too eager to get back down to the ground to do more than half-heartedly grip the spots on the building he needs to. Chirrut and Baze follow at a more sensible pace, but tell him to go, they’ll catch up.

The alarms outside the depot are still blaring, and he shoots two Stormtroopers who are hustling to pass through the gate. Chirrut and Baze, somewhere behind him, enter a brawl with a few more.

He charges past the wall, pistol ready, and finds Jyn getting to her feet painfully, trying to work out how to free her hands. The troopers are dead around her, unmoving, and he takes another risk in running out into the open to get to her.

He counts them off in his head. Saves the information for later. Risk after risk.

“Jyn!” he shouts, halfway there, and the smile she greets him with when she looks up to meet his eyes is enough to set his heart beating even faster. “Are you okay?”

His voice is harsher than he meant to make it, more full of blame than the worry he’s been feeling, but she seems to be able to read the worry regardless. Her smile doesn’t drop even slightly.

“You came back,” she says. He approaches her, slipping his pistol back into his holster, and pulls a lockpick from the inside of his sleeve, finally allowing a small smile as she offers her hands for him to free.

“Are you surprised?” he asks, softer now. As he gets to work on the cuffs, she lets out a small laugh, shaking her head to clear her hair from her eyes.

“A little,” she admits. “Speaking of surprises: I have one for you.”

“A surprise. Everything about this trip has been a surprise. Can’t imagine what else you’d have.”

“Turn around,” Jyn says, rubbing at her wrists as the cuffs fall to the ground. She’s grinning, peering around him, and Cassian turns.

It’s enough of a shock, enough of a surprise in itself to see the droid standing in the door to the shuttle, the ship that saved Jyn’s life, silently watching them. Cassian’s wondering how she managed to get her hands on a KX series, how she managed to program it to work with her. But there’s something about the way he’s standing. Cassian may feel a little _too_ surrounded by people now, but for most of his life, he’s had only one friend. And he _knows_ that insolent, impossible posture. The head tilt.

“K?”

( _Wonder_ , is what Jyn hears. Actual wonder, and dealing with K-2SO is suddenly worth it).

“Cassian, I am _glad_ to see you,” K-2SO says, walking forward slowly, almost hesitantly. Cassian turns back to look at Jyn, who can’t stop smiling.

“Surprised?” she asks.

“How did you…where did you…?”

“I should have known you wouldn’t come to your senses and leave her behind,” K-2SO says, walking closer. “We were almost home, too. I would have stolen that ship and saved the day. Maybe got a medal.”

“You almost shot me,” Jyn reminds him.

“Acceptable losses,” K-2SO replies with a shrug, which makes Jyn laugh. A little bitter, but strangely also fond. Cassian tries to glare at him. It’s not very effective: he can’t seem to keep the smile off his face.

“That’s not...No,” he says, lips twitching upward. “I’m glad you’re here, K, but no.”

If K-2SO could roll his eyes, that’s what he would be doing. Cassian has never felt so much affection for his friend.

“I give it a day before you’re ready to throw him out an airlock,” Jyn says, patting Cassian on the shoulder as she walks past him, heading to greet Baze and Chirrut, who are jogging through the gate with broad, open arms, rushing to hug Jyn in a way that Cassian wished he felt comfortable doing.

“I’m _so_ glad to be back alive,” K-2SO says dryly, sarcastically. Cassian looks over at his friend as he pulls out his comlink to tell Bodhi they’ll be waiting outside the city in an Imperial shuttle.

“That makes two of us, K,” he says.

* * *

And it’s good, and it’s right, and Cassian has never felt so whole. So why does he also feel so _lost_?

They make it to the outskirts fine, with no pursuit. Jyn calls the resistance members who helped her. She laughs off the apologies from a man named Wex, the sniper from earlier, who had to leave her in the square. Cassian watches her closely, the tension fading from her muscles, the relief evident in every word, and he feels a warmth that’s no less strong than the icy chill of fear was to have her gone.

But underneath that relief, underneath that warmth, there is real concern.

It’s too much. It’s too close. It’s dangerous.

Bodhi picks them up and is back in hyperspace in minutes, not wanting to linger any more than he has to. He waits, scattered brain focused on the task at hand until they’re well on their way back to Yavin, and then he scrambles out of the pilot’s seat and wraps Jyn in a tight, crushing hug. She laughs, makes jokes, smiles at him, but Cassian doesn’t miss the way she clutches him back, the way her fingers dig into his uniform.

“Never leave me like that again.” Bodhi’s voice is haggard and hoarse, and he pulls back to look at Jyn with the concern that Cassian wishes he himself could more easily show. It’s naked in its desperation, and it so accurately captures the feeling that’s making Cassian’s grip on his own chair white-knuckled. But he can’t bring himself to show it.

K-2SO is happy to see Bodhi again, and Bodhi is quickly distracted from his inspection of Jyn’s injuries by the droid’s questions about the new ship. As always, discussion of ships takes priority, and Jyn is released back to the main hold. Chirrut makes room for her on the couch between he and Baze, and she looks so small beside the two of them. Cassian finds himself hovering near the door, not wanting to let her out of his sight.

“I told you it would be fine,” Chirrut says, head turning towards Cassian, who lets out a humorless laugh.

“You told him it would _not_ be fine,” Baze says, before Cassian can point that out. “Over and over. The poor man was worried enough.”

Jyn looks at Cassian with a knowing, pointed grin, and Cassian grumbles something ill-tempered as he heads back towards his cabin. He doesn’t quite expect Jyn to follow him, but he’s not surprised when she does.

“Wait, Cassian,” she says, jogging after him. She catches his arm lightly, just like she did when the Death Star was destroyed. He needed her then, and he doesn’t think he needs her any less now. So why does he feel so afraid to let her close? Why, when back on Yavin it had been so easy?

It makes it more difficult, too, that she looks up at him and can _see_ all of this. He can read her own understanding in her eyes, can read it in the sad smile.

“Next time I tell you to stay on the ship…” he starts.

“Make sure you don’t actually _need_ me to save you,” Jyn finishes. Frustration, and he runs his hand through his hair, trying to figure out how to explain. “Cassian, I’m fine.”

“You could have not been.”

“So could you!”

“It’s different. I’m the captain. You’re _my_ responsibility. If anything happened to you…”

“There’s a reason we’re a _team_!”

“That’s not…if I…”

“Cassian.”

Patient, understanding, still lightly amused, and he stops trying to argue and just looks at her, his chest squirming unpleasantly with a thousand things he wishes he could figure out how to say. Jyn reaches into her jacket and pulls out the pill, opens her hand so he can take it.

“Never do anything like that again,” Cassian finally manages, repeating Bodhi’s sentiment. He hesitates, curls his fingers around the capsule. “And thank you.”

“You keep coming back for me. Maybe you should stop being surprised when I come back for you.”

Cassian at last allows a small smile, and Jyn squeezes his arm before she turns back to the main hold. Cassian watches her go.

If only it was as simple as that. If only he didn’t feel, more and more, like letting her into his life the way he did, letting her into his heart the way he so recklessly has, was a mistake that will get one or both of them killed before long.

He’s been ignoring his instincts to keep people at a distance because the warmth and comfort of finally having someone close has been too precious. But it’s selfish, isn’t it? She stole a suicide pill from his drawer because he was reckless and got himself caught. She was willing to take it, willing to die to protect him. Never considered that that was the _last_ thing that Cassian would want. They’ve been slowly orbiting closer to each other, with every shared glance and interaction, but this is what it has wrought.

It will hurt, he thinks, to pull away now. It will hurt her, and it will hurt him too. But it’s the right thing to do.

He opens his hand and sees that he has crushed the lullaby pill into dust.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a reminder that this is only the end of the first mission! Next up will be a one-shot to bridge the gap, and then mission number two! 
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone reading and commenting and kudos-ing!


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